11/27/2020 Poetry by Paula Lewis-Gamble spablab CC A LOVELY LIFE Days pass in a succession of alarms: shower, keep breathing, call your mother. I do not leave the house but I do get out of bed sometimes, to sit at the worn oak table in the corner of the kitchen and wait for the dog to indicate her need to piss. I find it kinda funny the way her left ear folds back: soft, pink skin offering itself to every ‘good girl!’ (In this way, I think we are alike) I’ve nothing new to say. It’s raining. The woman across the street is a thought-cloud, that curious sheep: umbrella floating like a question above her head. Are the women all accounted for, before I go to sleep? It’s enough to make you shear your own skin. It’s pissing down, the woman is a black cloud, the dog is playing dead black cloud black dog dead I take the pills to keep me awake - which are not to be confused with the pills to make me fall asleep, or the pills to stop the intrusive thoughts - they bring their own alarm. I get serotonin-drunk, count breaths until my fingers numb, and call my mother — who is fine by the way, in that way of us always being fine. An inter- generational fine-ness. I come from a long line of fine women: grin-bearing, broad shouldered. How heavy can the world be? I’m not as sad as I seem. I’m what they call managing which I guess means I’m somehow the one with all the answers, yet I question the wisdom of leaving all this in my butter-hands. Once, I slipped and landed on the wrong side of consequence. Both of these things are a lie. So the days pass in their alarming way, and I am nothing if not my mother’s daughter. Really, it is a lovely life: there are freshly picked flowers in a crystal-cut vase. Shower, breathe, scream into coffee cups. Paula Lewis-Gamble is an emerging writer and poet from Wales, UK who studied Creative Writing with The Open University. Paula writes about mental illness, gendered violence, body image bias, and other fun things.
She can mostly be found wearing pyjamas.
Susan Kay Anderson
12/5/2020 10:01:11 pm
Paula,
Denise Rusley
12/9/2020 12:05:17 am
Brilliantly written!! Comments are closed.
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